Frustrated by read-only files - not scm friendly for me

I just got a chance to try Sencha Designer 2 for the first time. There are some really nice features and in many ways it's a big improvement over 1.x. However, the handling of read-only files is still a huge problem for me. Where I work, we use an scm that is configured to pull in files as read-only and to flip them to read-only when they are checked in. For various reasons, this will not be changed. So having the Designer simply fail on these files is not an option.

I fully realize that I could easily write my own script to flip make everything in the project writeable, but I don't want to have to subject my team to running something like this every time they have to edit a file.

I appreciate that you're trying / improving on this. I remember the early Designer 1 days when the save would simply fail silently (ouch). Then, you made a failed save an error on the status bar. Now, at least there is a relatively in-your-face dialog telling me that something went wrong. But it's still not good enough. I need an option that just overwrites the files. Maybe everyone wouldn't want this, so fine; make it configurable. Lack of this is a near deal-breaker for us.

The Toolbox is also a problem. It's good that you can import / export, but in order to make this a viable method for reuse I need a way of checking the whole thing into source control so other people can use it. I don't want to have to deal with each component individually.

One of your marketing points is that you have a 'Source control friendly file format.' I do think the file format is better now, but IMHO these other things I have mentioned are a much bigger detriment to being source control friendly.

I like the new features in the Desinger, but please give attention to these fundamentals, too. I remember several people asking for this on the 1.x line...

However, the handling of read-only files is still a huge problem for me. Where I work, we use an scm that is configured to pull in files as read-only and to flip them to read-only when they are checked in. .... but I don't want to have to subject my team to running something like this every time they have to edit a file.

Did you try to check these files into your source control? They are "read-only" in the sense that the designer will not allow you to edit them directly, they however are not "read-only" in the filesystem level sense of the word. Taking a look at both the view/ and view/ui/ files in the CurrentMovies example shows:

I appreciate that you're trying / improving on this. I remember the early Designer 1 days when the save would simply fail silently (ouch). Then, you made a failed save an error on the status bar. Now, at least there is a relatively in-your-face dialog telling me that something went wrong.

This Ack/Growl style notify will be used pervasively throughout the application.

Originally Posted by firefoxSafari

I need an option that just overwrites the files. Maybe everyone wouldn't want this, so fine; make it configurable. Lack of this is a near deal-breaker for us.

These files will be overwritten each time that you save and there have been changes made.

Originally Posted by firefoxSafari

The Toolbox is also a problem. It's good that you can import / export, but in order to make this a viable method for reuse I need a way of checking the whole thing into source control so other people can use it. I don't want to have to deal with each component individually.

Ideally you would be able to create a "Component Pack" that could encompass a set of components that were grouped together and easily installed. Also it would be easy to share these components with colleagues and for each of you to make changes and check them into your source control. We are aware of the need here but do not yet have a solution for you.

Originally Posted by firefoxSafari

One of your marketing points is that you have a 'Source control friendly file format.' I do think the file format is better now, but IMHO these other things I have mentioned are a much bigger detriment to being source control friendly.

I like the new features in the Desinger, but please give attention to these fundamentals, too. I remember several people asking for this on the 1.x line...

Thanks, we are aware of the several issues and limitations that are currently in 2.x and we are striving to create a great product that everyone building apps with Sencha technology will want to use.

I don't think I explained my problem clearly. The files that the Designer writes out are NOT read-only, even the ui ones that are logically read-only from within the program. What happens is I check these files into our scm and then this scm client flips them to be read-only. It does the same thing for all files in a repository that you import for the first time. If the Designer tries to save a file that you've manually flipped to read-only, it will error with a dialog box.

Now, you may say it's not the Designer's 'fault', and from a certain perspective I'd agree with you, but I don't personally have control over this configuration and I refuse to fuss with alternate means to make the files writable again. Maybe our situation is uncommon, but it makes it very frustrating to work with the Designer. And this could all easily be alleviated for us if the Designer could just be made to overwrite files rather than failing. Many other IDE's I've worked with provide such an option. Again, maybe this is way less common then I think it is but this is the number one thing that we need that the Designer does not do.

btw, I tried to import the samples to get an apples to apples comparison, but it failed for me on my Win7 64 bit machine... don't know why.

So given that a file on the filesystem is read-only and we try to write to it you would like us to provide a prompt that says something along the lines that this file is currently read-only and would we like to write over it. We would then have to try to give ourselves write permissions and overwrite the file.

So given that a file on the filesystem is read-only and we try to write to it you would like us to provide a prompt that says something along the lines that this file is currently read-only and would we like to write over it. We would then have to try to give ourselves write permissions and overwrite the file.

Is this what you're looking for?

Yes please

Given that there can be many files, I think it important to that they all be done in one shot, too. I wouldn't want to have a dialog box for every file.

One IDE I'm used to (RAD - based on Eclipse) handles certain read-only scenarios like this. It says something to the effect 'This operation could not be completed because some of the files are read-only and automatic file overwriting has not been enabled. Would you like to enable it?' If you select yes, it overwrites the files and stores a preference in the workspace that indicates that it will just overwrite them from then on. So that would be ideal - some sort of project / installation preference we could set that would just do it automatically if we want. But a dialog box that if clicked would make all required files writeable would be a great start.